ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq’s civil defense has closed around 11,000 buildings over the past year due to safety violations, an official said Saturday, adding that Anbar province saw the most closures.

Nawas Sabah Shaker, head of media and public relations at the Civil Defense Directorate, told state media that the violations include failure to install fire extinguishing systems, using highly-flammable construction materials, and converting residential buildings into “random and irregular” warehouses.

“The inspection teams have carried out a wide-ranging on-site inspection campaign since the middle of last year, which resulted in the closure of 11,000 buildings and commercial projects that violated the conditions of self-protection throughout the country,” Shaker said.

Anbar province saw the most closures, followed by Basra and Baghdad’s Rusafa respectively, he added.

Iraq frequently faces fires due to weak enforcement of safety and environmental rules, particularly during extreme summer heat. Authorities said in early December that fire incidents fell by 58 percent in 2025 after stricter inspections and legal action against violators.

In July last year, at least 61 people were killed after a massive fire tore through a newly-opened hypermarket in Kut, the capital of Iraq’s Wasit province.

Authorities later confirmed that the building had been operating without construction permits, safety approvals, or an investment license. It was one of Iraq’s deadliest civil disasters in recent years.

According to Shaker, current fines for violators are between 250,000 Iraqi dinars (around $190) and one million dinars (around $763), adding that the directorate hopes the parliament “will expedite the approval of the amendment to the text of the Civil Defense Law No. 44 of 2013, which would grant the inspection committees greater powers to immediately close violating projects and raise the size of the financial fines to reach 10 million Iraqi dinars [around $7,633].”